📚 Self-defense

Books with self-defense on their catalogue record, first published between 1900 and 2017, ordered by how many editions are in print.

Below are the 30 works carrying the subject self-defense in the Open Library catalogue with the most editions in print, out of the 2,242 works the catalogue holds under that subject. Author and first year are as the record states them; a missing year means the record does not carry one, not that the book is undated. Novels set in the subject are left out, because a list of historical fiction is not a list of history. Where one author dominates the reprint counts, no more than two of their titles appear.

Cover	Title	Author	First published	Editions
	Psychic self-defence	Violet M. Firth (Dion Fortune)	1930	41
	Fighting method	Bruce Lee	1976	9
	Modern judo and self-defence	Harry Ewen	1957	8
	Thank God I Had a Gun	Chris Bird	2006	7
	Martial Arts	Peter Lewis	1988	6
	Krav maga for beginners	Darren Levine	2008	6
	The gentle art of written self-defense letter book	Suzette Haden Elgin	1993	5
	Self Defense	Elsa Dorlin	2017	5
	Judo	Sadaki Nakabayashi	1965	4
	Principles of personal defense	Jeff Cooper	1989	4
	Iron body ninja	Ashida Kim	1997	3
	1001 street fighting secrets	Sammy Franco	1997	3
	The Complete Idiot's Guide to Verbal Self-Defense	Lillian J. Glass	1999	3
	Complete Krav Maga	Darren Levine	2007	3
	When Violence Is the Answer	Tim Larkin	2017	3
	The elite forces handbook of unarmed combat	Ron Shillingford	1900	2
	Practical personal defense	G. B. Wyness	1975	2
	Looking Forward to Being Attacked	Jim Bullard	1977	2
	Fight for Your Life!	Theodore L. Gambordella	1982	2
	Nick Cerio's Kenpo	Nick Cerio	1984	2
	Self-defense for women	Diana Warren-Holland	1987	2
	Violence, blunders, and fractured jaws	Marc MacYoung	1992	2
	Aikido in everyday life	Terry Dobson	1993	2
	Psychic Protection	Ted Andrews	1995	2
	Ragnar's action encyclopedia of practical knowledge and proven techniques	Ragnar Benson	1995	2
	Tai Chi Chuan	Nigel Sutton	1996	2
	Wing Chun	Ip Chun	1998	2
	Kill-As-Catch-Can	Ned Beaumont	1998	2
	Krav Maga	Imi Sde-Or	2001	2
	Waking the tiger within	Scott Flint	2001	2

List built from Open Library (CC0 metadata) · retrieved 24 Oct 2026 UTC · capped at 30 works per subject.

Nearby shelves

Self-esteemSelf-esteem in ChildrenSelf-esteem in WomenSelf-evaluationSelf-helpSelf-help Techniques

Want the ideas behind these books explained rather than listed? Try Study for short explainers, Academy for deeper tracks, and the periodic table or the night sky when the book is about matter or stars.